Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Galveston 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Darkness Barely Visible

RLJ Entertainment has been wading into the 4K waters, and its latest effort is director Mélanie Laurent's bleak tone poem, Galveston, adapted from an early novel by True Detective's creator, Nic Pizzolatto. (For reasons discussed in the standard Blu-ray review, Pizzolatto removed his screenplay credit.) Unlike some of RLJ's previous UHD releases, where the difference from the standard Blu-ray was barely perceptible (e.g., Arizona), Galveston's 4K treatment displays noteworthy alterations, but they're not necessarily an upgrade.

Galveston 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

(Note: Screenshots accompanying this review have been captured from the standard Blu-ray. Additional screen captures can be found here.)

In the standard Blu-ray review, I described how director Mélanie Laurent and her cinematographer, Arnaud Potier, used darkness and dim lighting to achieve a contemporary noir style. For RLJ Entertainment's 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD disc, the HDR colorist appears to have taken his (or her) cue from this extensive use of half-light and dark settings and exaggerated it to such extremes that in many scenes the action has become impossible to follow. (Seriously: In the botched job that turns Roy into a fugitive, I would not have been able to tell what was happening if I didn't already know from watching the standard Blu-ray.) The blacks on the disc are velvety, deep and beautiful, but they don't service the story.

This UHD appears to be an up-conversion from a 2K source, but any uptick in detail or definition is negligible, even in the film's well-lit scenes, which were well-enough represented on the standard Blu-ray. When darkness and shadow prevail, which they do for the majority of the film, any advantage from up-rezzing is negated by the HDR's enhanced gloom. Color values appear comparable, with some minor refinements in shadings on the 4K.

Galveston 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The UHD disc contains the same lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track previously reviewed.

Galveston 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As is RLJ's usual practice, it has included the same extras (in 1080p) on the UHD disc as on the standard Blu-ray. They are discussed here. A copy of the standard Blu-ray is also included.

Galveston 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I couldn't give Galveston a strong recommendation on Blu-ray, and although the UHD disc can currently be had for only $5 more, I can't recommend that additional expenditure, unless you have an academic interest in seeing how HDR colorists can get so carried away with technological toys that they lose a film's narrative thread. Arguably, Laurent and her cinematographer charted that path with the original photography, but the 4K treatment pushes their design toward a cliff over which it falls into a dark void.